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CNN Saturday Morning News

Taliban Rejects Second Offer to Turn Over bin Laden

Aired October 13, 2001 - 07:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is at Camp David today but he is not leaving his work behind CNN's White House Correspondent Major Garrett joins us now with the very latest -- Major.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jeanne.

Let's catch you up on one of the overnight developments the White House is watching. The Taliban regime has said it has rejected the offer President Bush made on Thursday evening -- that second chance offer -- where the president said if in fact the Taliban did turn over Osama bin Laden and all of his lieutenants the United States would reconsider its military action. Here's how the president phrased that second chance offer in his press conference in the East Room Thursday night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My focus is bringing al Qaeda to justice and saying to the host government, "You had your chance to deliver." Actually I will say it again: If you cough him up and his people today, that we we'll reconsider what we're doing to your country. You still have a second chance. Just bring him in. And bring his leaders and lieutenants and other thugs and criminals with him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GARRETT: Now, Jeanne, it's no surprise to the White House the Taliban rejected this so-called second chance offer. What we've been told about it -- an administrative official told CNN just a few moments ago: "The military actions will continue until the president's demands are met or our military objectives are reached, which ever comes first."

The president is at Camp David, as you said, and among the items he'll be dealing with this weekend is the continuing anthrax scare here in the United States. And Vice President Cheney on Friday, in an interview on the PBS program "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer," was the first senior administration official to articulate that he believes there is a possibility that Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorist organization is somehow linked to the outbreak of anthrax scares.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We know that he's trained people at these camps in Afghanistan, for example. We have copies of the manuals that they've actually used to train people with respect to how to deploy and use these kinds of substances.

So you start to piece it all together. Again, we have not completed the investigation; and maybe it's coincidence, but I must say I'm a skeptic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GARRETT: Before leaving the White House Friday afternoon for Camp David the president tried to reassure the American public about the anthrax anxiety, saying the federal government was on high alert and doing everything it could from a criminal investigative point of view, and also from a health point of view to deal with their concerns both in New York and in Florida and wherever else an anthrax scare might materialize -- Jeanne.

MESERVE: Major, is the president conferring with his national security advisers today? And is he going to be talking with them about this nagging question of what to do about Afghanistan after the military strikes are over?

GARRETT: Indeed, Jeanne. From Camp David the president will convene yet another meeting of his National Security Council, otherwise known as the war cabinet. He'll do that via video teleconference from a special hookup at Camp David.

Now, we're never quite sure what the agenda is at those meetings. But a persistent question that the administration is exploring is what exactly to do with the Afghan people after the military campaign eventually succeeds, as the president has made abundantly clear he believes it will.

There's a good deal of debate going on within the administration about how to proceed. The president said on Thursday night that the United Nations should step in to stabilize a future government, but the Bush administration wants to make it abundantly clear it will play no role whatsoever in creating that governmental structure. That, the administration says, is up to the Afghan people who have a history, even a pre-Taliban history, of warring and fighting among each other as to who will rule that country.

So once that's decided by the Afghan people -- the various tribes -- then the U.N., with the support of the United States and other nations, will try to stabilize that government. But the hardest work appears to have to be carried out by the Afghan people themselves when the military campaign actually subsides -- Jeanne.

MESERVE: Major Garrett with the latest on the White House, thank you.

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